A Caregivers Guide in Understanding Dementia Patient

Our loved ones suffering from Dementia usually have trouble remembering things, thinking clearly, communicating with others, and taking care of themselves. On top of these difficulties, Filipino caregivers must also deal with the elderly’s mood swings and the changes in their personality and behavior.

When an elderly has dementia, he loses his “internal critics” or his ability to distinguish socially accepted behaviors from those that are not. Agitation, paranoia, incontinence, and sleeplessness also occur in people with dementia. Every Indonesian caregiver or Filipino caregiver needs proper guidance in handling Dementia patients.

Eden Grace Maids Agency wants to help the caregivers deal with the troubling behavior of these patients through the following tips!

Ground rules in handling an elderly with Dementia:1. Your loved one is not his disease.
The brain disorder is the one that controls his bad behavior. There’s no point hating the patient or forcing his actions to change! Instead of controlling, the family and the caregiver must try to accommodate the behavior instead. This leads us to the second tip.

2. Make changes in the environment and not on the patient.
This is accommodating the behavior of the patient, instead of changing him. For instance, the elderly wants to sleep on the floor. The caregiver can ready a mattress and pillow on the floor instead of forcing him to sleep on the bed.

Changes in the environment can also involve changing the family’s and caregiver’s attitude in dealing with the elderly. A frequent conversation with them instead of isolating them makes a lot of difference!

3. Find the trigger.
Every bad behavior is caused by something. We may not know that these behaviors are because of medical reasons and discomfort. Refusing to eat can be because of a toothache or a stomach pain. When these kinds of behaviors get worse, going to the doctor for a medical checkup is always a safer option.

The Filipino caregiver should always be present to observe the elderly she’s taking care of!

4. Find the purpose of the actions.
She may take all the clothes out from the closet daily and it’s confusing and tiring. It could be because she wants to be productive and busy for the day and she only wants to work on something! It is a must for caregivers to be observant and accommodating when behaviors like this shows.

5. Expect that your method now may not work later.
Caregivers and family members expect that their methods aren’t effective every day because the disease may also progress through time. However, heads up! Your methods of dealing with them can be modified. As long as you have the same goal, it is no problem.

For example, caregivers may want to help the patient eat healthy. Giving her fresh fruits is effective at first but the elderly already refused to eat it after weeks. The caregiver may make a smoothie out of the fruit next time. The goal of helping the elderly eat healthy was met through a modified method.

We hope these tips helped you understand more your loved ones with dementia. We wish you a healthy and happy family!

Are we in need of someone who can take good care of our loved ones? Consider the reliable caregiving and maid services from Eden Grace Maids Agency. The agency has employees who undergo proper training and background checking to fit our manpower needs.

Please contact us for a fuss free consultation with our unique personal screenings of our maids. We look forward to serving you!